National Parliaments and EU Fiscal Integration

What is it about?

This article analyses the impact of the euro crisis on national parliaments and examines their response the limitation of their budgetary autonomy. It argues that the debt crisis has provoked the emergence of new channels of parliamentary involvement in EU economic governance (e.g. rights of approval in the European Semester, strengthened accountability of national governments, reinforced budgetary scrutiny, improved access to information, creation of new interparliamentary forums). In these respects, they have undergone further Europeanisation and this represents an embryonic step in the parliamentary adaptation to the nascent EU fiscal regime. Yet national parliaments are unlikely substantially to influence EMU policy making, because of the democratic disconnect inherent in the EU’s multilevel constitution.

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Why is it important?

This is important because it shows that national parliaments were not passive in the euro crisis but that at least some of them have strongly reacted to the limitation of their powers. This to some extent nuances the orthodox view that the euro crisis has been detrimental for democracy.

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